


a thousand armies couldn't keep me out

by haipollai



Category: Captain America (2011), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Adjusting to a new time, Feels, M/M, Mention of Canonical Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-20
Updated: 2012-05-20
Packaged: 2017-11-05 17:10:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/408921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haipollai/pseuds/haipollai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>But then Bucky's back and Bucky has always been closer than anyone else. The barriers that kept the others out don't exist for him. Steve is both grateful and terrified. He's gotten used to his bubble, and popping it would be opening himself up to more than Bucky. It would mean accepting where he is and when he is and that this whole new world has to be his world.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	a thousand armies couldn't keep me out

Steve keeps all his sketchbooks, he has a shelf reserved in his room where the full ones go. There's only a few there now, the one he had in London was kept by the military and Hill got it back for him but most of his from before the war were lost or even sold. He was in shock when he heard how much it went for; it was the only thing keeping him from asking for it back.

For a while no one looks at them, the other Avengers respect them as part of Steve's space and not for them. As he gets used to the rest of the team, he sketches more and more around them and they see glimpses but no more.

But then Bucky's back and Bucky has always been closer than anyone else. The barriers that kept the others out don't exist for him. Steve is both grateful and terrified. He's gotten used to his bubble, and popping it would be opening himself up to more than Bucky. It would mean accepting where he is and when he is and that this whole new world has to be his world.

Bucky just smiles and ruffles his hair and barrels right over his concerns even as he tiptoes around Steve. Trying to pretend nothing has changed despite the feel of cold metal against his skin and the haunted look always behind Bucky's eyes. They're both haunted now and Steve sees his biggest failure in the other man. So when Bucky wants to drag him out, to see this new world that he only knew through the eyes of his past controllers, Steve can't say no.

It's a breaking and shattering and remaking and Steve is grateful to have Bucky back. He forgot what it meant to be alive, to do more than live from fight to fight. Bucky sets up himself as part of Steve's life again and it’s like before but it’s different too. They have changed and so their relationship must change but underneath it they’re still Steve and Bucky. He's not surprised to come into his room and see Bucky on his bed; he comes to expect it, to want him there.

And just as Bucky dragged Steve into his life, he works himself into Steve's. Steve hears from Natasha and Clint how he's looking at the mission reports and SHIELD files on everyone, filling himself in on everything he missed. Then one day, a rare slow morning, he's woken up by Bucky slipping out of bed and he watches without moving as Bucky peruses the book shelves, running his fingers over the spines. He glances over and asks if he can and Steve doesn't hesitate to nod yes.

He plucks out one and brings it back to the bed, settling back into his spot as he opens it. The one he chose is from the beginning, from when Steve had first woken up in this strange new world and his memory was still the war and Peggy and Bucky and then everything changes and there's Tony and Bruce and Natasha and Clint and Thor. Loki and Phil.

Bucky pauses on a trading card stained with red that Steve had taped into the book. The files don’t say anything about how Phil Coulson asked for a card to be signed or how a team couldn’t get along. Bucky doesn’t look over at Steve as he traces the drawing beside it. A man who turned out to be more of a hero then Steve ever felt he himself was.

“Tell me.”


End file.
